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The clinicopathological and prognostic value of PD-L1 in urothelial carcinoma: a meta-analysis

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Abstract

The prognostic value of programed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) in urothelial carcinoma (UC) has been assessed in previous studies, while the results remain controversial and heterogeneous. Therefore, we performed this meta-analysis to explore the prognostic effect of PD-L1 in patients with UC. PubMed, Embase and Web of Science were searched to identify the studies. Hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) and clinicopathological factors were extracted from included studies. A total of 1819 patients with UC from 11 published studies were incorporated. The results of meta-analysis showed that positive PD-L1 expression was significantly associated with poorer overall survival (OS) (HR 1.59, 95% CI 1.05–2.40) and disease-free survival (DFS) (HR 1.83, 95% CI 1.03–3.25), but not recurrence-free survival. Moreover, in the subgroup analysis, significant associations between PD-L1 expression and OS or DFS were found in bladder UC, the cutoff value of positive expression of PD-L1 ≥ 5% and the expression of PD-L1 on the tumor cell membrane. Interestingly, positive PD-L1 expression was correlated with poorer pathological T stage (OR 2.03, 95% CI 1.46–2.82). Our meta-analysis implies that PD-L1 might be a valuable biomarker of poor prognosis for UC, especially bladder UC, although further large-scale and well-designed studies are warranted to verify the prognostic value of PD-L1 for UC.

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Funding

This work was financed by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81402430), the Collaborative Innovation Project of Guangzhou Education Bureau (No. 1201620011) and the Guangzhou Science Technology and Innovation Commission (No. 201704020193).

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  1. Department of Urology, Minimally Invasive Surgery Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Urology, Kangda Road 1#, Haizhu District, Guangzhou, 510230, Guangdong, China

    Yaoan Wen, Yeda Chen, Xiaolu Duan, Wei Zhu, Chao Cai, Tuo Deng & Guohua Zeng

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  1. Yaoan Wen
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Correspondence to Guohua Zeng.

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Wen, Y., Chen, Y., Duan, X. et al. The clinicopathological and prognostic value of PD-L1 in urothelial carcinoma: a meta-analysis. Clin Exp Med 19, 407–416 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10238-019-00572-9

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